


Even the weeds are green and flowering

by greenapricot



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV), Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Reminiscence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 19:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot
Summary: Watching James at his careful work—snipping off a branch or two, stepping back to consider the bush as a whole, snipping another branch—brings to mind another garden, much better kept than Robbie’s poor neglected allotment. A garden with roses that weren’t altogether dissimilar to these.





	Even the weeds are green and flowering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iloveyoudie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyoudie/gifts).

> This started out as a prompt fill for an [ask meme](https://greenapricot.tumblr.com/post/186838288820/send-me-characters-and-a-letter-and-ill-write) on tumblr for the prompt: The color green .... James/Robbie or Max/Morse. It got much longer than I intended. 
> 
> I tagged this Endeavour because Max’s garden and the descriptions of it are Endeavour canon even though none of this takes place in that time period. (The Max and Morse in the garden scene was cut from the PBS airing of Endeavour S6 but you can watch a clip of it [here](https://bryndeavour.tumblr.com/post/185664267176/i-promised-i-would-cut-this-together-for-you-guys).)

The allotment is verging on disaster as it has been since Robbie first picked up the key. His name had made it to the top of the waiting list later in the spring than was ideal for planting and by the first time he made it out to the plot the weeds had already gotten ahead of him. Now here it is August, he’s still fighting weeds and invasives and tomato hornworms, but despite all that he’s very much enjoying himself. The weeds may be unwanted but even they are green and flowering. 

There’s something about getting his hands in the dirt and being out amongst all the greenery. Watching the progress of the plants as the season progresses; green leaves and more green leaves, the plants doubling in size, yellow and white and orange blossoms, the tiny beginnings of vegetables—which James tells him are actually fruits, save for the green beans and carrots—and then, miraculously, edible food. 

The first night they had beans from the allotment for dinner Robbie felt more proud than he probably had a right to, considering how often work kept him from tending to the allotment properly. The beans had pretty much fended for themselves. Likely there would have been more of a yield if he’d been able to keep up with the weeding, but it being his first year with the allotment he’d been prepared for most of the plants not to make it. Every vegetable and fruit he picks feels like a gift.

The beans are a success. The courgettes are so much of a success that he’s only planting one next year. When work gets in the way for a week during the time they’re ripening, three plants leads to 50cm squash and eating courgettes with every meal for the next week. James had baked quick breads, casseroles, a concoction called courgette pizza, made countless stir-fries, and salads—including one with raw grated courgette, lemon, pepper, and parmesan that Robbie had been rather suspicious of but turned out to be delicious. 

It seems that cooking an inordinate amount of courgettes in interesting ways is one of James’ many hidden talents. Pruning roses is another. At this point, Robbie should no longer be surprised when James continues to surprise him. 

James is by the fence on the far side of the plot wrangling the accidental roses, as they’ve been calling them. The bushes were left by the previous occupant who planted them in a spot where perennials oughtn’t have been planted. They’re climbing the fence, twining themselves into Robbie’s tomato plants, and reaching into neighbouring plot.

When giving Robbie the run-down of this particular plot, the manager had apologised for the work Robbie had in store for him removing the rose bushes, but they had been a low priority with turning the soil and planting and weeding between cases. Then the roses began to bloom, peachy-pink with a delicate fruity scent, and Robbie hadn’t had the heart to pull them up. They are unruly and make walking down the row of tomatoes nearest the fence hazardous with their questing, thorny branches, but when the breeze blows just right their delicate scent mingles with the smell of the soil in a most delightful way. So they stay, gangly and a bit out of place but a joy to behold; not unlike the man pruning them. 

Watching James at his careful work—snipping off a branch or two, stepping back to consider the bush as a whole, snipping another branch—brings to mind another garden, much better kept than Robbie’s poor neglected allotment. A garden with roses that weren’t altogether dissimilar to these. 

Morse had parked the Jag in front of a brick cottage with a trellis of climbing roses out front and marched up to the door like he belonged there. There was a moment of hesitation, his hand in his trouser pocket as if he was about to pull something out of it, before he knocked on the door. When no one answered Morse knocked louder. When still no one answered he accompanied his knocking with a bellow of “Max!” 

The answering call to “Come round the back,” filtered around the side of the house. 

Robbie followed Morse as he made his way through the gate, pulling it shut behind him and giving the latch a quick tug upward that spoke of familiarity with the finickiness of the mechanism. They walked down a stone path around the side of the cottage into a garden in full summer bloom; a riot of green dotted with constellations of pink and yellow and white flowers, the splashes of colour making the green seem even more vibrant in comparison. Robbie caught glimpses of sculptures scattered throughout the greenery as he walked. 

The path led them to a brick patio, then continued on towards an apple tree by the far garden wall. Morse stopped on the patio, next to the garden table, and tutted at Max DeBryn who was crouched by some rose bushes at the corner of the cottage. 

“I gave you that key for a reason, you know,” Max said, not turning around. 

“Max,” Morse said, sharply. “Lewis and I need—”

“Ah.” Max stood, took off his gardening gloves and brushed his hands on his trousers which were almost as dirty as his gloves. There was a mischievous look in his eye as he came across the patio and stood in front of Morse, a bit closer than necessary. He bobbed on his toes. “Not here to join me for lunch on my day off, then?”

Morse looked almost wistful, maybe a bit chagrined. He pursed his lips. “That post-mortem from yesterday. Could the blow to the head have been caused by the victim’s head hitting something, rather than someone hitting him in the head?” 

“It’s my day off, Morse,” Max said, looking him up and down. 

Morse pursed his lips again, not quite hiding the telltale quirk of a smile. “Maaax.” 

Max grimaced and gave Morse a lingering pat on the shoulder as he stepped around him toward the back door of the cottage. “I will answer your question, but only after we’ve had lunch. There’s chicken left over from last night that will make some fine sandwiches. Enough for three,” he added with a nod in Robbie’s direction.

“And if I’ve had lunch?”

Max leaned around the open door. “If you’ve had a lunch that didn’t consist entirely of beer I’ll eat that rose bush.” His tone was playful and the look on his face was verging on affectionate. 

It struck Robbie, standing there in Max’s secret garden haven, that Max and Morse were much more than workmates to each other. More than friends even. He’d seen them banter more times than he could count over the years, but somehow, here in the garden, there was obviously more to it. They were more relaxed almost, more open. Though if pressed, Robbie wouldn’t have been able to point to any one thing in particular that was different. 

“Fine,” Morse grumbled, “I haven’t.” 

Morse settled into one of the chairs by the table, looking very much at home. Sat there among the verdant green and well-tended roses, Morse seemed more relaxed than Robbie had ever seen him look on his own sofa. As if sitting in Max’s garden was something he’d done many times over the years, growing ever more familiar with the garden and its other inhabitant. 

Max beckoned Robbie inside to help fetch the lunch things and the three of them passed a pleasant half-hour over sandwiches and sweet, lemony tea before Max allowed Morse to ask any case-related questions. Robbie didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation, but he did manage to eat two and a half sandwiches before Morse got the information he’d come for and stood to leave. 

Robbie never asked and Morse never volunteered, but watching James now across the rich green of his own allotment, he wishes he’d acknowledged out loud what Max and Morse had shown him that day. Neither of them had ever said anything outright, but Robbie was sure he’d been deliberately let in on a secret. That they had trusted him with something that would have made both of their lives more difficult had it been widely known. 

It gets him wondering. What would Morse and Max have made of himself and James? What would James have made of them? James and Morse would either have got on like a house on fire or wanted to set each other on fire, but James and Max, he suspects, would have been fast friends. 

“Stand there like that any longer and the weeds are going to grow right over you,” James says, straightening up from his task. 

Robbie blinks, startled out of his woolgathering. “Oi, get back to work yourself.” 

James tilts his head at him, sizing up the faraway look that must be in his eyes, and snaps the pruning shears at him. “Aye, aye, sir.”

Robbie feels a sudden flush of warmth that has nothing to do with the sun shining down on him. That sir is all affection, nothing like the work sir, more a term of endearment than anything else. 

He returns to his weeding, daydreaming about how much easier it would be to keep on top of things if he had a vegetable plot where he lived. A house with a garden large enough for vegetables and intentionally planted roses, a patio with a little garden table. He would pop out the back door, pick something for dinner, and do a spot of weeding while James prepared their meal. They could afford something like that together if they moved a little further out. 

When he makes it to the end of the row, Robbie decides it’s time for a proper break and pulls the cooler with its beer and sandwiches out of the shed. James, finished with his pruning, makes his way across the plot and presents Robbie with a bouquet of cast-off rose clippings, no less beautiful for being the bits of the bush that had been growing out of control. 

“Couldn’t bring myself to throw them in the compost,” James says, looking a mite sheepish as he hands them over. 

“They’re lovely, lad.” 

James smiles, the bright, genuine smile that was once so rare, and gives Robbie a peck on the cheek. Robbie puts the roses in the open top of the watering can to keep them fresh. They sit on folding chairs and eat their sandwiches and drink their beer, admiring the progress they’ve made so far today. The roses look like they belong, climbing the fence artfully and not getting in the way of the path or the tomatoes. James has, as he does with everything, done an exceptional job. There’s only one row that still needs weeding and they’ll make quick work of it after lunch, now that James is finished with the roses. 

“You know,” Robbie says, taking the last sip of his beer and putting the empty bottle down in the dirt next to his chair. “If we lived where the garden was the weeds wouldn’t get so out of hand.”

“Moving into the shed are you?” James says, gesturing to the dilapidated building behind them. 

“I was picturing something larger,” Robbie says.

James takes a swig of beer and Robbie doesn’t miss the fact that the lad is looking out across the plot, not at him. “There can’t be many flats with gardens that are right for vegetables,” James says tentatively.

“Probably not,” Robbie agrees. “Houses though.” 

“In Oxford?” 

“With two incomes it should be doable.”

James turns and blinks at him, tries to take another sip of beer only to discover there’s none left. He grips the empty bottle in both hands, his fingers worrying the label and stares at Robbie, incredulous. “You’re serious, you want…”

Robbie meets James’ eyes. “A house. With a garden. With you.”

“Really?”

“Is it that much of a surprise?”

“I— No— Yes—” James shakes his head, looks down at the bottle still clutched in his hands. He puts it on the ground carefully. When he looks up at Robbie his smile is so joyous Robbie couldn’t keep himself from smiling back if he tried. “I’d like that too. With you.”

_____

**Author's Note:**

> The accidental roses are a climbing variety called A Shropshire Lad. Morse gives some to Max in iloveyoudie’s modern au [Delicious Burdens](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1161971) (which everyone one should go read). The variety didn't come into existence 1996, so Max would have missed them in Inspector Morse canon, but let's either pretend that's not true or call it rose-related poetic license.


End file.
